Dynamic Neural Network Based Inflation Forecasts for the UK
Dr. Jane M. Binner and Dr. Alicia Gazely
Nottingham Trent University
United Kingdom
jane.binner@ntu.ac.uk
alicia.gazely@ntu.ac.uk
Ph. Lic. Thomas Elger
Department of Economics
Lund University
Sweden
thomas.elger@nek.lu.se
Key words:
Neural networks.
Divisia money.
Inflation forecasting.
Abstract
The objective of a government’s economic policy is to promote sustained economic
growth and rising living standards. This requires a stable macroeconomic
environment based on low inflation on a permanent basis. Macroeconomic theory
shows that there is a strong relationship between the quantity of money and the price
level. Some economists even believe that this relationship is so strong that the
indicator based inflation targeting practiced by many central banks today should be
abandoned in favour of monetary targeting. This paper uses UK data and a new
modelling strategy in this context, the Artificial Intelligence technique of neural
networks, to provide evidence of the inflation forecasting potential of different
measures of broad money. We examine the empirical performance of a theoretically
consistent ‘Divisia’ (MSI) measure of the economy’s monetary services flow (Barnett
and Serletis, 2000), extending the analysis to account for information contained in
Divisia growth rate variances and also comparing performance with that of a
traditional simple sum measure. This is the first time that Divisia Growth rate
variances have been used with UK data. Results presented demonstrate that a
superior inflation forecasting model is achieved when the Quantity Growth Rate
second moment is used alongside the Divisia index measure of money.
Introduction
By the mid-1980s it was becoming apparent that financial innovation, resulting from
increased competition within the banking sector and the succumbing of the financial
world to the computer revolution, was seriously distorting the seemingly stable
relationships between the monetary aggregates and the ultimate policy target variables
(inflation, nominal GDP, etc.). The case for monetary targeting was discredited and
some countries, such as the USA and Canada, abandoned it altogether in the late
1980s. In the UK monetary policy has been reformulated in terms of a direct target
for inflation. Thus the role of monetary aggregates in major economies today has
largely been relegated to one of a leading indicator of economic activity, along with a
range of other macroeconomic variables.
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However some observers have focused on the possibility that fundamental problems
of measurement may be responsible for the recent monetary turmoil. This view is
based on the widely established belief is that the broad money aggregates generally
used by governments (derived by simply summing the various constituent liquid
liabilities of commercial and savings banks) are seriously flawed and based on
untenable assumptions. From a microeconomic perspective it is hard to justify adding
together assets which have differing and varying yields. The accepted view is that
only goods that are perfect substitutes can be aggregated based on the method of
simple summation. There is a growing body of evidence from empirical studies
around the world which demonstrate that weighted index number measures such as
the Divisia index may be able to overcome the drawbacks of the simple sum, provided
the underlying economic assumptions are satisfied. Ultimately, such evidence could
reinstate monetary targeting as an acceptable method of controlling inflation.
The current research is directed to providing further empirical evidence on this last
proposition. The construction of the Divisia index (or MSI) relies on very restrictive
representative agent and separability assumptions. If these conditions are not met, the
Divisia higher moments may contain economically relevant information about the
dispersion of the component growth rates that is not contained in the index (first
moment) itself. For this reason, Barnatt and Serletis (1990) advocate the use of
second moments. For an overview and further references see Barnett and Serletis
(2000) and Anderson et al (1997). Formal tests of the assumptions underlying the
construction of the Divisia index lie far beyond the scope of this paper. However, in
an inflation forecasting experiment it seems very pertinent to enquire whether the
information contained in the second moments does provide additional information and
improve the predictive ability of the forecasting model. We have therefore
constructed a new series from the variance of the growth rates of the individual
components of Divisia, and include this Divisia Quantity Growth Rate variance as an
additional indicator in our model. The variance Kt is defined (Anderson et al 1997, op
cit) as follows:
n
Kt   sit(log (mit)  log ( Mt )) 2
i 1
The use of neural networks to explore the explanatory power of measures of broad
money allows a completely flexible mapping of the variables, hence approximation of
highly non-linear functions is possible and the model is not constrained by the
requirement to estimate regression parameters, as in standard econometric
methodology. Moreover, neural networks are inductive. Hence, when there is no exact
knowledge of the rules determining the features of a given phenomenon, knowledge
of empirical regularities can still allow it to be modelled, and the process of training
allows the network, in effect, to ignore excess input variables. Results presented in
this paper are thus generated by use of a powerful and flexible tool which allows
greater variety of functional form than that currently attainable by the use of
conventional econometric methodology.
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Data and Method
The level of monetary aggregation selected for this analysis has been chosen to match
the level of aggregation used by the Bank of England in the construction of their
official MSI. Assets included are notes and coins, non-interest-bearing-bank deposits,
interest-bearing bank sight deposits, interest-bearing bank time deposits and building
society deposits. Two quarterly series were prepared, a simple sum series and a
Divisia series, both seasonally adjusted, and a Divisia Quantity Growth Rate variance
series was also constructed. The GDP deflator (source: the OECD Statistical
Compendium) was used for the price series and inflation was constructed as year on
year growth of prices. All monetary data were obtained from the Bank of England
Statistical Abstract, Part 2. After lagging, the time period represented was 1981 Q2 to
2000 Q1 (80 quarters).
A very simple model was chosen to allow the information content of the monetary
variables to be evaluated on an equal footing. The model takes inflation in the current
quarter to be a function of money measures in preceding quarters and inflation for the
preceding quarter, thereby including an autoregressive term,  t-1. An additional
input T taking the values 1 to 80 was also introduced to represent time as a variable.
This time trend variable allows for the possibility that external factors, connected with
the passage of time from 1981 to 2000, could have an effect on the inflation rate. Lags
for the money measures of the preceding quarter (Mt-1) and one year before (Mt-4)
were chosen.
 t = F(Mt-1, M t-4,  t-1, T)
The model was applied to the Divisia monetary aggregate (and the simple sum
aggregate for comparison purposes). In a third condition, the Divisia second moment
Quantity Growth Rate (QGR) was introduced as an additional input alongside the
Divisia series, similarly lagged by one, and four quarters.
 t = F(Mt-1, M t-4,  t-1, T, Qt-1, Q t-4)
An artificial neural network is a system composed of many simple processing
elements (‘nodes’ or ‘neurons’), interconnected and operating in parallel, usually in
several layers. A back-propagation network for example, will contain an input layer,
an output layer and one or more ‘hidden’ layers in between. Connections between
nodes are weighted, to provide the equivalent of signal strength in a biological
system. At a node some processing takes place in which the combined inputs may
simply be summed, but likely are more likely to be transformed using some nonlinear
function before the resultant single value is passed on to other nodes for further
processing. The network has a specific architecture (number of layers, nodes and
their connections) and there are various other parameters. The learning rate learning
rate determines how much the weights in the network are changed during each cycle.
A high learning rate will change the weights faster, but may cause the weights to
continually "overshoot" the optimum, while a low learning rate converges very slowly
but improves the chances of locating an optimal error-minimizing solution.
Similarly, the momentum determines how quickly learning accelerates or decelerates
in response to the current error, and high values can assist faster convergence.
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Artificial neural networks do exist in various forms, but in this case are implemented
as software.
Training data, which includes input data and desired output, is presented to the
network and processing takes place to minimize the error between the desired output
and the current output. This takes place many times until the error is reduced as far as
possible. The outcome is a trained network which consists of a given architecture and
a set of optimal weights, to which new data (a test set) can be presented so that an
estimated output can be obtained.
The neural network architecture used for all the networks was a simple design, being
a back-propagation network with hidden neurons in one layer only. The sigmoidal
transfer was used for outputs. In each of the three conditions, three of the
experimental parameters were also varied. These were:



Network size (2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 hidden neurons)
Learning Rate (values of 0.01, 0.05, 0.1 or 0.3), and
Momentum (values of 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 or 0.9)
Of the 80 quarters, the first 70 were used for training and the last 10 for testing. The
random number seed which determines the initial conditions for the network was kept
constant throughout. All networks were trained for 20000 iterations of the whole data
set in order to avoid the problems associated with premature stopping. The opposite
problem, of overfitting, should have been avoided by including a range of network
sizes.
Thus 81 networks were constructed for each model, making 243 networks in total.
The results for the best three (by Root Mean Squared Error out-of-sample) for each
model are presented here.
Results and conclusions
In-sample
1.1
1.2
1.3
RMS error
0.007288 0.003935 0.003951
Mean absolute difference
0.0060
0.0030
0.0030
Mean percent error
15.5%
7.2%
7.2%
Out-of-sample
RMS error
0.005612 0.006880 0.007551
Mean absolute difference
0.0044
0.0059
0.0064
Mean percent error
51.9%
62.5%
67.2%
Table 1: Divisia alone: best 3 networks from 81 networks
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In-sample
2.1
2.2
2.3
RMS error
0.009587 0.007931 0.002842
Mean absolute difference
0.0080
0.0066
0.0023
Mean percent error
20.0%
15.9%
5.5%
Out-of-sample
RMS error
0.005271 0.005808 0.006108
Mean absolute difference
0.0045
0.0047
0.0051
Mean percent error
45.4%
53.4%
56.5%
Table 2: Divisia + QGR: best 3 networks from 81 networks
In-sample
3.1
3.2
3.3
RMS error
0.007694 0.012337 0.014001
Mean absolute difference
0.0064
0.0114
0.0132
Mean percent error
16.7%
27.7%
32.2%
Out-of-sample
RMS error
0.005022 0.005120 0.006042
Mean absolute difference
0.0042
0.0041
0.0045
Mean percent error
33.9%
33.0%
29.6%
Table 3: Simple Sum: best 3 networks from 81 networks
Divisia alone Divisia + QGR Simple Sum
In-sample
RMS error
Mean absolute difference
Mean percent error
0.005058
0.004025
9.9%
0.006786
0.005604
13.8%
0.011344
0.010348
25.5%
Out-of-sample
RMS error
Mean absolute difference
Mean percent error
0.006681
0.005562
60.5%
0.005729
0.00478
51.7%
0.005395
0.004251
32.2%
Table 4: Average of best 3 networks from 81 networks: All three models
It can be seen from Table 4 that while Divisia alone presents the best in-sample
results of the three models (meaning a closer fit), the addition of the Quantity Growth
Rate variable improved out-of-sample results. Consequently it is evident that the
Divisia Quantity Growth Rate Variance does contain information that it valuable for
forecasting inflation. Work is currently in progress to perform non-parametric tests
that allow for measurement errors of separability assumptions underlying the Divisia
approach. The results (Binner et al, 2003) indicate that there have been shifts in
consumer preferences over time, which provides additional motivation for the
inclusion of QRS in the current study.
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Divisia alone
Number of hidden
neurons
Learning Rate
Momentum
Divisia + QGR
Simple Sum
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.1
1.2
1.3
4
6
6
6
6
6
4
2
2
0.30
0.30
0.01
0.30
0.01
0.10
0.30
0.50
0.30
0.30
0.01
0.10
0.30
0.30
0.30
0.01
0.30
0.03
Table 5: Experimental parameters for the best 3 networks from 81
It seems that high values for both learning rate and momentum can produce superior
results. It also seems that of the three models, the model using Simple Sum as the
monetary variable is able to produce superior results with a very small network of
only two hidden units.
A surprising finding in this study is that the simple sum model outperforms the
Divisia model in the forecasting experiment. Divisia has previously been found to be
superior in several countries, using the neural network approach (Gazely and Binner,
2000). It is possible that the finding is related to the smaller networks which seem to
produce the best forecasts for the simple sum model and further investigations are in
progress.
However, the improved performance of the model which includes Quantity Growth
Rate variances is a more important finding. This is the first time to our knowledge
that this variable has been used with UK data, and from the early evidence presented
it appears that the inclusion of the additional information could make a significant
difference in empirical studies such as this one. It is hoped that this research will
contribute to the widespread acceptance of Divisia monetary indices as
macroeconomic policy tools. Ultimately, such evidence could reinstate monetary
targeting as an acceptable method of macroeconomic control, including price
regulation. Further, the artificial neural network in combination with enhanced
measures of money offers a promising technique for the development of an improved
model of inflation.
References
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Barnett, W. and Serletis, A. (eds.) The Theory of Monetary Aggregation, North
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Binner, J., Edgerton, D., Elger, T. and Jones, B. ‘Weak Separability Tests for the
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and SUNY-Binghamton, 2003.
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